His perception of Middle-earth is biased by a point of view that imagines that divine powers have chosen Gondor to lead the fight against evil.

He is always eager to praise the great deeds of Gondor, including his own.

Gondor is a fictional kingdom in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings, described as the greatest realm of Men in the west of Middle-earth by the end of the Third Age.

The third volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, is concerned with the events in Gondor during the War of the Ring and with the following restoration of the realm.

The history of Gondor is described in several of Tolkien's works, with different levels of detail.

The word means " land of stone ", and is echoed in the text of The Lord of the Rings by the name for Gondor among the Rohirrim, Stoningland.

The physical nature of Gondor is most prominently illustrated by the maps for The Lord of the Rings and Unfinished Tales made by Christopher Tolkien on the basis of his father's sketches, and can be supplemented by several geographical accounts such as The Rivers and Beacon-Hills of Gondor and Cirion and Eorl.

; Andrast: A peninsula in the south-west of Gondor ; the name translates from Sindarin as " long cape " and is also given an alternative in some of Tolkien's works, Ras Morthil with the meaning either " cape of dark sheen " or " cape of dark horn ".

; Tarnost: A town marked on Tolkien's working maps of Gondor, where it is placed on the southern side of the pass in the hills between rivers Ringló and Gilrain.

Another highly authoritative position appeared when King Narmacil I granted to his nephew Minalcar " the new office and title of Carma-cundo " Helm-guardian ", that is in terms of Gondor Crown-lieutenant or Regent.

Local government in Gondor is depicted as being similar to feudalism.

In the movies, the flag of Gondor is the royal standard with the colors reversed ( black tree, seven black stars, and a black crown on a white field ).

It is a grassland which lies north of its ally Gondor and north-west of Mordor, the realm of Sauron, their enemy ( see maps of Middle-earth ).

The Dúnedain of Gondor and the Rohirrim were distantly related ( having descended from the same northern stock ), and the people of Gondor describe the Rohirrim as Middle Men, inferior to the Númenóreans in both culture and descent, but superior to the Men of Darkness who had worshipped and served Sauron — and this is stated as fact in The Lord of the Rings, but contradicted in later writings.

Gandalf and Pippin arrive at Minas Tirith in the kingdom of Gondor, delivering the news to Denethor, the Lord and Steward of Gondor, that a devastating attack on his city by Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor is imminent.

Thus the siege is broken, but at heavy cost: many warriors of Gondor and Rohan fall, among them King Théoden.

Aragorn is crowned King of Gondor outside the walls of Minas Tirith in a celebration during which all four Hobbits are greatly honoured for their contribution to the War of the Ring.

A healed Faramir is appointed Prince of Ithilien and Steward of Gondor, and Aragorn marries Arwen, daughter of Elrond of Rivendell.

They have much interaction with the Children, including the Númenóreans ( appearing later: Men of the West, an island sea-people, founders of Gondor and ancestors of Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings ; the fate of the Númenóreans, and so the fate of all the later histories, is wrapped up tightly with " the Sea ".

This begins to change in the beginning of its third millennium, however, when Gondor is assailed by Orcs and Men from the nearby Mordor.

For a long time, no one suspects that the same force that had driven the attacks upon Arnor is now fighting Gondor.

But the Stewards of Gondor also often bore names " remembered in the songs and histories of the First Age ", regardless of meaning, and the name Boromir did appear during the First Age in The Silmarillion.

To the south were the Hither Lands including Harad, though " Harad " means " South " and while properly used for the region immediately south of Gondor and Mordor was often loosely used to refer to every land to the south.

Elessar rebuilt the once-ruined northern city of Annúminas and often dwelt there although his throne remained in Gondor.

These new Corsairs were cruel slavers who often raided the coasts of Belfalas and Anfalas in Gondor.

In speeches of this new character many of the author's conceptions about the history of Gondor either emerged for the first time or were only now set to paper: Boromir's horn was perceived to have been unique, " reasons of decline of Gondor " and its ethnic diversity textually elaborated, the Stewards first referred to, and the surrender of the " fields of Elenarda " to the Rohirrim was postponed to the epoch of the Stewardship and temporarily became regarded not as a gift from Gondor but as an enforcement by the Horse-lords.

* Horn of Gondor, a horn carried by Boromir, son of the Steward of Gondor, in the Lord Of The Rings books and films

Tolkien intended the name Gondor to represent a sample of Sindarin, an Elven language devised by him, and within the books used by the Dúnedain for nomenclature.

One main difference from the books can be seen in the heraldry of Gondor.

In the books, the flag of Gondor under the Stewards was a plain white banner without device.

The geography of Jackson's Gondor differs significantly from the books.

The land seems largely brown and uncultivated, while the books describe Gondor as fertile farming land with many houses and towns across the Pelennor and the area south of the White Mountains.

Board games include Risk: Lord of the Rings Trilogy Edition and another simply entitled Lord of the Rings, as well as the Middle Earth Games from Simulations Publications, Inc. containing the games War of the Ring ( strategic, covering all three books ), Gondor ( tactical, covering the siege of Minas Tirith ) and Sauron ( covering the decisive battle of the Second Age ) in 1977.

The oaths between Gondor and Rohan were renewed, and several joint campaigns were fought in the east and south ; all former territories of the South-kingdom were won back during the following centuries, and its power and wealth were restored.

; Enedhwaith: The wide land between rivers Isen and Greyflood, stated in different Tolkien's writings either to have been held by Gondor and Arnor jointly, to have been a part of the South-kingdom, or to have belonged to neither of them.

An essay that was prepared as one of the appendices to The Lord of the Rings but became compressed contains a reference to currency of the South-kingdom: " In Gondor word tharni was used for a silver coin, the fourth part of the castar ( in the canath or fourth part of the mirian ).

This combined references to several symbols of the realm: the White Tree was a unique plant brought by Isildur from Númenor, first planted in Minas Ithil and later three times replanted from seed at Minas Anor ; the Crown of Gondor was in the beginning Isildur's war-helmet and later the main symbol of monarchy in the South-kingdom, with wings of a sea-bird being an emblem of the exiled Númenóreans ; and the stars " originally represented the single stars on the banners of each of seven ships of nine in which Elendil and his sons sailed to Middle-earth that bore a palantír ".

With the progress of the narrative during 1941 – 2 to the breaking of the Fellowship and the war in Rohan, particular aspects in the history and culture of the South-kingdom were introduced one by one: alliance with the Rohirrim and ceding a province to them, in gratitude for their help in the first war with Sauron ; the White Tree and the winged crown, at first just as vague images in Aragorn's song ; the spelling Gondor ; and the Palantíri, with Hornburg and Isengard made into former Gondor fortresses and sites of two out of five Stones in the South-kingdom.

He sent messages to Arvedui ( now king ) announcing that he had received the crown of Gondor, according to the laws and the needs of the South-kingdom, " but I do not forget the royalty of Arnor, nor deny our kinship, nor wish that the realms of Elendil be estranged.

The coastal people that originally inhabited the lands of Arnor and Gondor were the Gwathuirim, whose language was " Southern Mannish ".

* Southern Army of Gondor from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fictional realm.